The packaging machine may be a deep-drawing packaging machine. In such packaging machines the packaging material passes through a plurality of work stations in succession so as to subject the packaging material and/or the products to be packed to various working steps in temporal succession. In so doing, for example, packaging troughs are deep-drawn in the moving material at a forming station. Alternatively, prefabricated trays are removed from a destacker. The deep-drawn packaging troughs (or, alternatively, the pre-fabricated trays) are then filled with a product, the packages are evacuated and/or flushed with gas, they are sealed with a top foil or closed by means of a slip lid, and, if necessary, the packages are also separated from one another, checked and/or sorted out. These working steps take place in work stations which normally each include at least one movable tool member. The movable tool members of the individual work stations have to be synchronized with one another when the packaging machine is operated in an intermittent mode as well as in a continuous mode so as to guarantee a smooth operation of the packaging machine.
EP 0 515 661 B1 discloses a packaging machine of the type in question in the form of a deep-drawing machine. This machine is provided with a forming station for forming packaging troughs in a bottom foil as well as with a filling station and a sealing station. For each of the work stations a mechanism is provided for converting the rotation of an electric motor into a lifting movement of a tool member of the respective work station, such as, for example, the forming tool of the forming station, or the chamber part of the sealing station. In order to cause both sides of the respective tool to move upwards or downwards parallel to one another, a belt couples the movement of a plurality of shafts which extend transversely to the production direction of the packaging machine and the rotary movement of which is converted into a lifting movement of the respective tool member. This conventional packaging machine is, however, disadvantageous insofar as respective separate drives must be used for the different work stations. In particular, it is difficult to synchronize the movements of the tools of the different work stations with one another.